Blues Clues Carnival -1yr- Carnival Snacks & Games

For my son's 1st birthday I wanted to throw a giant party because so many out-of-town family members were going to attend. About 50 adults/children combined.  The children varied in age, so I had to do something they could all enjoy.  I decided to throw a "Blue's Clues Birthday Carnival Party".  With 2 months to plan and a $500 budget, I think it all came together very nicely.  I chose to have it at my parent's house since they have a huge backyard as well as a long and wide driveway. 

For the invitations I drew Blue with handful of balloons, cotton candy in the other hand, and a birthday hat on.  I easily scanned it and made copies.  On the back wrote all the information.  I decided to use the driveway for all the carnival games, and the backyard for the tables and food. 

I decorated the driveway entrance with a giant balloon arch made of different shades of blue, white, clear, and silver. I also placed blue paw-prints all the way up the path to the front door.  Since the door would remain open, I hung a blue beaded curtain in the door's frame. We rented a blue dog moon bounce and placed it at the far end of the "carnival".  I then set up tables all along the sides of the driveway for the games. 

Some of the games were:

Blue's tic-tac-pawprint (an idea I got from this site!)  I spray painted 9 milk crates blue and placed them together and made felt sacks in 2 shades of blue for the kids to toss. 

Another was Mr. Salt & Mrs. Peppers Kitches ring toss.  This was a table set up with different bottles you would find in the kitchen: Olive oil, a glass milk bottle, etc.  The rings were made out of wooden craft rings I bought @Michael's, which I painted blue. 

Other games were Slippery soaps bubble float (toss the ping-pong ball into glasses filled with blue water), Shovel & Pails sidewalk art show ( a giant area of sidewalk where the kids were asked to use chalk to draw their favorite B.C. characters),

Mailbox's Memory maker (I found an old mailbox @ a garage sale and painted it to look like Mailbox.  I placed it towards the enterance of the house w/a table next to it w/yellow construction paper, crayons, markers, stickers, etc.  I asked all the guests to make Jayson "mail" that he could read later on in his life, and place it inside mailbox),

Tickety clocks sack race (I made a start and a finish line on the grass and lined up blue pillow cases at the start),

Periiwinkle's milk bottle knock-down (I set up old plastic Gatorade bottles that I had wrapped a "milk" label around.  I set up a basket of blue hackey sacks that the kids could use to knock down the bottles),

Green puppies silly hop-scotch (a hop-scotch game made out of crazy shapes, I painted small rocks different shades of green and blue), and a few other games. 

Each game/table was decorated with a sign that had the particular character on it, and a huge balloon bouquet. 

We also had Magenta's snack stand where kids could get snacks (we rented a cotton candy maker, popcorn machine, and a snowcone maker) we also put out cookies that were shaped like dog bones, blue M&M's, magenta and blue jelly beans, and a giant punch dispenser filled with blue punch.  I made the games so that the children could roam around and play the games at will without having to stay in a giant group, since there were quite a few children(20!)

We did set up a few games that they had to play as a group:  Blue's musical dog house(another idea I pulled off this site! Musical chairs w/ a B.C. twist We made a giant doghouse out of a cardboard box left from a refrigerator purchase)this was placed in the front yard as well,  Pin the flag on mailbox (I drew a giant mailbox out of posterboard and gave the children red flags I had also made), and the pinata (luckily a friend makes them and she made a very big dog bone and a smaller Blue we used the blue for the younger kids and the bone for the older ones). 

The backyard was set up with rows of tables that were decorated with a mixture of B.C. printed partyware and plain blue partyware.  The centerpeice of each table was a red pail and yellow shovel, which I painted faces on.  I filled the pail with a few heavy rock and topped with tissue paper.  I tied a balloon bouquet to the pail's handle.  In the middle of each bouquet was a mylar of Blue. I had made a cut out paw prints, and they were taped to the back of the chairs.  The entire fence was decorated with the characters from B.C. that I had drawn, painted, and cut out of poster board.  I hung christmas lights in all of the trees, and the food table was placed under a tent which we used blue tape (the kind painters use) to make stripes on it. We tied balloon bouquets at the enterance of the tent, and we had made a tape of B.C music that played from within.

The food was basic BBQ food:  Hot dogs, burgers, BBQ corn, mac&cheese, potatoe salad, fruit salad, coleslaw, baked beans.  I saved by making the food myself w/some help from family. The family room (which has big glass doors that lead to the yard) was decorated as well.  I turned our pink comfie chair into thinking chair by making a simple slipcover for it out of dk. Red material.  I glued thick black piping around the seams.  I also made a life-size side table drawer out of plywood, that we stuck onto the front of an old table we had found and placed it next to the chair.  I also made the yellow frame out of contruction paper and placed it behind the chair.  Since our walls are white, we decorated them with green swirls we had cut out of green paper.  We had made a tape of Blue's birthday, Joe's birthday, mailbox's birthday, etc. and had it playing on the bigscreen. We used the thinking chair area for Jayson to open presents, and for the other children to take pics. I made 2 cakes (magenta and blue) with a cake tin I found @ Michael's which was the shape of blue's head. 

It's a great recipe that is mixed with regular cake mix & Jell-O and the kids LOVE it!  Blue was made with blueberry jello and whipped cream filling, and magenta was strawberry jello w/strawberry filling.  I had also made a coned triangle party hat out of a flat yellow cake and decorated w/frosting and placed on each of the dogs heads. Since there were 3 games that the kids played as a group, the winner of the game got a clue which they had to draw in the handy dandy notebook.  First: a candle, second: a pic of Jayson, third: a recording of someone humming the first part of the Happy Bday song.  The question was "what does blue want to do next?" The answer: sing Jayson happy Bday! All the kids sat around thinking chair to figure it out. We served the cake and ice cream in plastic dog bowls which I decorated with Jayson's name & the date and painted balloons on them.  Everyone got to take one home. 

The take home bags were simple as well.  They were filled with handy dandy notebooks which I made, a crayon, a small blue bouncy ball, a blue bottle of bubbles, a package of blue BubbleYum gum, a blue pencil and eraser, and other little things I got at the 99 cent store like party poppers.  It was definitly a lot of planning, and I recruited a lot of friends and family to paint, color, cut out, and decorate.  I made as much of the stuff on my own as I could, and I shopped discount stores and dollar stores frequently to stay under budget.  I found great things there like the blue partyware, blue balloons, streamers, party poppers, utinsils and other great stuff.  I had a family member donate time to video tape, and another took charge of the pictures. 

My brother who is a bartender, made simple drinks for the adults, and our neighboor who is a chef, made the dogbone cookies, and appetizers like deviled eggs, and chhese & crackers in which the cheese was also a dog bone.  As I mentioned a friend gave made the pinata's.  I was very relieved after it was over, although it was nice to see the family together enjoying the party.  It went off without a hitch, and the kids (1-14 years) seemed to have a blast!  Our son Jayson had fun as well even though he was only 1there were many memories made that he can look upon when he's older! One suggestion:  enlist as many people as you can to help clean up!